Nearly all the things that have gone wrong

When we moved into our last house, it was a well-executed flip and there was n o t h i n g for us to fix for basically the entire 5 years that we lived there. We added air-conditioning, updated a breaker, and painted the walls. Well, I didn’t, because I was pregnant, and it wasn’t “safe” for the baby, so I tried my best to look disappointed as I left our loving, generous friends standing there with paint rollers whilst Rowan (in my belly) and I traipsed off to a matinee.

This house? This new house of ours. A 1924 English Revival beauty who captivated us with her charm, her geometric magic attic portal, its multiple gables, its primary bedroom staircase, its enchanting, bright blue-painted pool, its peach and orange trees, its romantic Palladian windows, a sunlit harkening back to Renaissance-era Venice.

The MLS listing described it as a “fairytale house,” which turned out to be pretty accurate if you are relying on the more misanthropic definition of fairytale: a fabricated story, especially one intended to deceive.

The house didn’t deceive, so much as did the apparent charlatan, our General Inspector. Here are all the things that have gone horribly wrong in the five weeks we have inhabited Rapunzel’s Tower. Hold onto your asbestos-ridden hats!